Power break. Briefly push past the limits of your power. Then your power breaks and breaks you in the process. All the symptoms of a concussion, none of the blunt force trauma. Aside from crippling migraines, nausea, vomiting, loss of any or all of your senses, seizures and hallucinations, power break also seriously weakens passive powers and completely prevents active power use. So if you’re considering relying on it to win a tourney, or ace an exam, think carefully if it’s worth it.

Mickey was trapped in a pocket dimension, empty lightless space stretching out to eternity. Held within his dimension he was acutely and absolutely aware of three thing.

He should not be here. You cannot put a box inside a box inside a box inside the first box itself without consequences.

He was aware of his shattered body. The full complexity of cells and biological processes crushing its way into his mind, assisted by his powers passive cognitive enhancements.

And he was aware of his connection to reality rapidly fading like wisps of smoke In a gentle breeze.

Through the pain he focused his attention on his broken body.

'Fix it.' He thought, comparing what his body currently was against a memory of his healthy body, perfected with assistance from meta-power.

Between one instant and the next all the broken, displaced parts of his anatomy were relocated where they should be, and returned to their proper state. As his power recreated his brain with a perfect copy of a perfect copy of itself Mickey shrugged off the existential horror.

Turning to the much more immediate terror of being trapped for eternity in a lightless, soundless, pocket dimension of his own creation, he steadied himself to avoid lashing out uselessly with his power and instead focused on gathering all his remaining energy for a single burst.

With a mighty wrench, Mickey mentally clenched all the muscles outside his body, expanded inwards and pushed all of reality into the outside of non-dimensional space. With an entirely unpleasant ‘Squelch' Mickey oozed through the greasy membrane between worlds into reality.

Mickey had a moment to enjoy the feeling of air on his bare skin, breath filling his lungs, and glorious, beautiful light and sound, before a wave of soul deep exhaustion and crippling agony swept him into oblivious unconsciousness.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-

Mickey woke to the noise of a whispered argument and hospital beeps, each unintelligible sound shimmering through his head as if it had been bounced off a gong. He vaguely recognised the voices belonging to his most violent dearest and an old military uniform, but he couldn’t quite remember the names.

‘Murgle tremtere.’ Mickey mumbled.

Hearing him Eleanor rushed to the side of his hospital bed.

Eleanor. That’s her name.

‘Oh sweetie are you okay?’ Eleanor asked, worriedly.

Mickey took a breath and marshalled his thought with an effort. He didn’t want Elly to worry too much.

‘Been better. But beem here before. Will rec’ver.’ Mickey managed to say with minimal slurring.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

As she grabbed his and Mickey turned his head towards the other person in the room.

Captain Amazing stood in an at ease stance calmly waiting.

Mikey sighed.

‘You fuckin bitch. Time?’

‘Three hours, twenty minutes from power break to consciousness. You’ve improved by almost an hour. Additionally you are now registered as firmly in the mid tier twos. Congratulations.’ Without another word Amazing turned on her heel and left the room, only to be replaced with an incredibly apologetic looking Brisbane Battler, holding a bouquet of ‘Get well soon’ balloons.

As he opens his mouth to explain or apologise, Laminae cuts him off heatedly .

‘You did what you had to, but I’m still pissed off. More at the Captain than you. Just give me a little while to cool off.’

‘I’ll stay out of your way for the rest of the week okay?’ The Brisbane Battler says.

Before The Battler could apologise to him, Mickey waved it off.

‘Amazing could have blocked that hit but I figure she was making a point. Unfortunately she knows most of my tricks. Not your fault man.’

‘At least you’re recovering quickly?’ Battler said questioningly.

‘Yeah, power break hits like a concussion but it’s not actually one. The worst of it is getting used to having none of my passive cognitive enhancements. Now can’t feel things outside of my skin. My balance is shot and I’m going to bump into everything for days.’ Grumbled Mickey as he levered himself out of the bed.

Leaning on Eleanor for support he stumbled out of the room, hoping to avoid meeting anymore of the team. However Captain Amazing evidently anticipated his recovery and was waiting outside the room with Dr Trenshaw, the Brisbane Bastion’s staff doctor.

Mickey didn’t slow, tugging Ellly down the corridor, towards the exit.

‘Mr McRae a moment of your time, please.’ Said Amazing.

‘Haha, nope!’ Mickey returned without hesitation as he left the building with Eleanor.

‘I’ll drive. You probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel yet.’ Elly said, unlocking the nondescript sedan.

Mickey grunted an agreement before taking the passengers side seat and rummaging in the dash box for pain killers.

‘I cannot believe she let you get hit like that. You could have died!’ Said Eleanor.

Mickey made a face and wobbled his hand from side to side.

‘Probably not, she has a good handle on what my abilities are. She knew I could recover from the at the very least. She’s saw me come back from worse while we were in service.’

‘You were in the army together?’

‘Sorta. She just got her commission when Manifestation Day happened, whereas I was conscripted. And the organisation of the meta’s into the armed forces was... Haphazard to say the least. But we were both in the arm at the same time.’ Mickey shrugged uncomfortably.

‘I don’t really want to go into it. That time was just complete shit and better left in the past. More importantly, we need to check on the dungeon. I have no fucking clue how my power break is going to affect things.’

Mickey’s phone buzzed as he received an official format text from Captain Amazing requesting a consultation. He replied that due to an unexpected illness he would be unavailable until late next week.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

At the dungeon the found everything normal, the portal still functioning and the gate blocking it off still intact.

‘Well that’s good. It’s still there and there isn’t a horde of mutant ratmen killing everything that moves. Only now do I realise that to find out what’s going on in there we’ll have to go inside, and I am not equipped for a delve without the crap in my pocket dimension. So now we have to go to my apartment to get my backup gear.’

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A short while latter

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

‘Okay, I get keeping an emergency stash in your apartment, But why do you have so many fucking guns!?’ Asked Eleanor as she watched Mickey fill a large backpack with what he considered the ‘Basics’

‘For violence? What else am I going to use guns for?’

‘Where did you even get all of these?’ Elly gestured at the two dozen firearms hidden in the reinforced safe built into the base of the expansive bed.

‘I was in the defence force for years in some of the most violent and chaotic theatres in the world, and my power makes stealing shit really easy. Do the math, dearest.’

Hefting the pack with a grunt Mickey gestured to gun vault acting as the base of his bed.

‘Don’t suppose you’d do me a favour and put that back to rights?’

Eleanor just stared at Mickey.

‘Why do you even have a rocket launcher? What are you going to use it on?’

‘Giant Spiders.’

‘... Fair.’ She conceded.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Outside the Dungeon, Again.

Mickey throws a rope tied around the bag into the portal. Immediately it starts slowly dragging the bag towards the portal.

‘See this way, the gear will arrive after we do and we won’t go through the portal overburdened and vulnerable. Clever huh?’

Laminae looked at Mickey, unimpressed, before cladding herself in glowing armour and stepping into the portal.

Mickey watched her go. He couldn’t help being a little nervous as well as excited. This was the first opportunity he’d had to go into a metaregion de-powered.

He’d never experienced a metaregion as normal person before, Usually he had every possible advantage. It’d be good to see the dungeon from a delvers point of view.

Mickey checked his spear, his backup handgun, and his three backup knives then, with a deep breath, stepped into the portal